


/maud, now you're gone

by Pearly_Pornography



Category: A Clockwork Orange (1971), A Clockwork Orange - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, POV First Person, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Underage Drinking, Underage Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-03-26 18:52:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19011790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pearly_Pornography/pseuds/Pearly_Pornography
Summary: Takes place while Alex is in prison. Pete has an existential crisis while looking for a job. Billy is just about to be shipped off to the military. They have a smoke and some booze and feel bad for themselves.





	/maud, now you're gone

**Author's Note:**

> Does not comply with book canon.
> 
> Title is from "Maud Gone" by Car Seat Headrest.

Slooshy well, O Brothers,  as I recount a rather troubling raskazz of my youth. I, your trusted narrator Peter -- Pete, if you will -- used to take part in the old ultraviolence with my dearest droog Alex. I met him in the correctional, we were both molodoy and malenky and full of energy most baddiwad indeed. I his senior by a few years, but he the true threat of us malchicks. And, as luck may have it, our domies were very close-by in nature. But we were closer than our domies. I have the messel that we were closer than he were with Dim or Georgie, as well. I was his golden veck. I did not betray him, never once did I turn my nose up at him.

He got sent to the staja a year prior, and since then it became my time to begin rabbiting and eventually start a family of my own. At rabbiting age, one got a great many offers. Dim and Georgie immediately agreed to become bruiseboys, but I declined. Why would I, a veck of such criminal background, agree to rabbit with lewdies who danced around handcuffs and rozz autos crasting cutter from other lewdies all unfair-like. Half the fun of acts old ultraviolent was the risk, in my humble mozg. To become a millicent would be going against my very nature as a veck of worlds most ill-legal. But this left me without rabbit to do.

The gazetta was full of job-words, "help wanted" and "help wanted" and "help help help" and all. I refused anything regarding cheesting. I'd easier snuff it than scrape cal off of walls and floors with a zoobie-brush. Unfortunately for brother Pete, cheesting and rozzing were all anyone seemed to wish of a malchick those days.

It was Thursday or so when I went to peet a bit of the old bean and pick up the gazetta. Cafes still had their niche for morning chellovecks off to rabbit at the first peek of the sun, as well as health-and-wellness devotchkas living fully on chai and oil. I liked mine with a fair amount of moloko and sakar, my yahzick screams at things bitter. They were given in white glassy chashas with round handles, very starry and all. It was well expensive, and the amount of deng I'd kept on hand from the way-back-when was depleting. And the "help help help" section of the gazetta returned to disappoint, all "cheest this toilet" and "cheest this window" and I refuse to cheest anything but myself and my rookers after I dung in the bathroom.

I returned my chasha after peeting about three-quarters and left with the gazetta rolled under my arm. Viddied to be another gloomy and cold day. All this cheesting and rozzing, when would a nadsat of my own be seen as grown enough to do something real? 

The local pharmaceutical was mostly empty, save the occasional starry old veck purchasing arse-cream and laxatives and all. I reached for a different gazetta and was immediately met with another rooker that wanted the same one. Now in an outdoor setting, this would be cause to tolchock the bratchny right between his glazzies, but not inside with all these starry lewdies around on their canes and wheels and thick-lensed otchkies. So I looked up and began to say "appy polly loggies" but it came out as more of an "auuuhhh" with what I viddied.

Now I make it clear as crystal glass that this was non-intentionable. But it was old bolshy Billyboy in his armyman's platties whose rooker I'd touched on mine own, and he viddied like he was preparing to sick on the whitey-white floor. Now of course we couldn't keep this meeting un-settled, but I was hardly up for a nozh scrap of any kind, and Billyboy didn't seem too fond of it either. 

"Hi hi hi there." I chumbled all awkward-like. "I thought you were off overseas to drats in pooshkas with the army."

"Not till 'morrow." He chumbled as well, solemn as dead. "Today's my last day before my ookadeet."

"Well," I pulled my rooker back but he also pulled his. That gazetta would just lay there all day, it seemed. "I'm all on my oddy-knocky so we could filly around awhile if you--"

"We are sworn enemies. I can't."

"Alex is in the staja, I don't see why we must be sworn at that now." I was feeling sammy as all and ever, like I was Jesus Christ bestowing his gift unto the lewdies of this ill-gotten world. I never had much against the malchick other than pride. "I figured our rivalry was more for-show-like."

"Sodding moron. You wouldn't know a bird if it dunged on you."

"Well, no need to be so rotten about it." Billyboy always had that von of chip oil on him, you would think he spatted in a deep-fryer. Alex always told me Billyboy had just the most oozhassny Pee and Em that one could have, and his domy was always grazhny and bore an unmistakable von of urine. He'd apparently platch over how his Em would tolchock him with her sabogs, until he got lightyears too starry for platching. ("And that's why he's such a bratchny, he is," Alex would always end the raskazz such ways.) Perhaps it was pity I was experiencing, years-late pity for the malchick before me. 

"Fine." Billyboy shoved his rookers into his carmans, glazzies averted and rot wrapped around a half-charred cancer. Then he turned and goolied to the door with a crasted gazetta under his arm. I considered telling the devotchka at the register, but it wasn't in my nature. No, I would just follow.

We goolied and goolied in full silence, until all the shops disappeared and it became nothing but trees. Then the trees turned into garbage. A junked auto lay de-wheeled and abandoned, doors just barely hanging on their silvered hinges and oknos cracked like bezoomny. Billyboy swung one of the doors open and crawled in through the front seat. "Welcome to Bog's abandoned auto-park." A rather gloopy name, but Billyboy was a rather gloopy sort. 

"It must have been a lovely auto." 

"Not anymore."

"So," I cleared my gorlo and viddied out the crackled okno, "what made you join the green-folk anyhow?"

"Couldn't get rabbit, can't get me own domy, can't get a wife. The military gives a free domy, free pischa, and you get to poke pooshka-holes in strangers with the law on your side." He cracked open the glove-box, which was full of bottles. Some cheap beer brand. Gnawing off the cap with his zoobies, he took a long peet and then offered me a bottle and a cancer. I was flattered, and accepted his gifts in stride. "Pee and Em don't want me no more, so I'm gone."

"Really? That's oozhassny. Appy polly loggies, brother."

"Don't pretend to worry." A puff of smog. "So what's been doing recently, eh..." He furrowed his brow. "What's your eemya?"

"My e- you don't know my eemya? That's... it's Pete." I was just a malenky bit hurt. Then again, did I know the eemyas of his droogs? Leo was one of them, but the others escaped me. I was the only of Alex's droogs that didn't attend the local skolliwoll, we brothers had met in correctional as very malenky malchicks. "How did you do come end of skolliwoll, by-the-by?"

"Poorly."

"Well you sure are a bucket of sun, aren't you."

"Being a malchick was real horrorshow, but this adulthood is of no worth."

"I understand. Poor old me, I haven't been able to find rabbit since I finished my education. Oh, but I couldn't be a green man like you, I'm absolutely poogly of pooshka fire." I shook my gulliver all sad-like. "All my plott getting lost on the battlefield, seems a waste to me."

"Between us two malchicks," another long breath of smoke that flew out the okno, "I have no intention of heading abroad."

"Hm? But I thought 'morrow was your ookadeet, you told me so yourself."

"I plan to snuff it." My rot fell wide and glazzy-whites bared naked and all. "This nochy. My mother keeps her own rooker-pooshka in the closet, and I'll snuff it with no pain. I'm not spoogy to die, if I'm willing to go abroad then I'm willing to snuff it. I'd rather snuff it."

"I, um--"

"I'm telling you this," he took a peet of his beer, "because you're not my droog. If I told my droogs, they'd call the millicents. The millicents would arrive at my domy and take me to a mental hospital, and I'd be trapped with schizophrine chellovecks who eat their own cal."

"Then why tell anyone?"

"Well, if nobody knows, I may as well just be disappeared. They could print my face on cartons of moloko if I didn't tell anyone."

"I'm sure your Em would slooshy all the noise."

"I don't know." It was all quite a lot to take in, brothers, I felt like I'd just been told a nuke would land in London in five minootas. A flame had been taken to the molodoy years of Pete, even though I still desired a murder, I desired pol and in-out and ultraviolence. I desired my youth, which had been mere months ago. You can lose a lot in a malenky time, after all. It's enough to drive a veck absolutely bezoomny, up his own wall.

"I don't know if I'd want that."

"Doesn't matter to me. Why would I care of your feelin's when I didn't even know your eemya 'til a bit ago?"

"Well," I crossed my rookers all serious-like, "I'd be unhappy."

"Quit your platching. It's no better being an army veck anyhow, you just get shot by some other veck instead of yourself." His gaze was seemingly pre-dead, emptied of all those malenky feelings and thoughts he'd certainly had at some point bumpiwumping in his rasoodock. Consumed in his growth, like mozg cells, he stared like the vecks at the starry lewdies home. "If you can't rabbit and can't shoot, you live all on the roads like those starry drunkies I always liked to tolchock. Should I become what I don't like?"

"It seems we're meant to become what we don't like."

"Yarbles to that." Billyboy viddied me. "You could snuff it with me if--"

"Of course not, I couldn't!" I shook my gulliver. "I need to be with Alex when he gets out the staja. I'm the only droog he's got."

"Surely, he'll have some new droogies by then. Staja vecks with bolshy rookers an' all." 

"Well of course, but he wouldn't forget old Pete."

Then again, I had been unintentionally complicit in his arrest. Oh, Dim and Georgie would love to have one believe I was in on it all. But they are liars, with their lies on their zoobies and goobers, like they drank krovvy. I'm innocent. I'm pure as ivory soap, and clean as it, too. No chaste devotchka nor godman nor angel could compare to my pale-shade soul, at least on that front. I may be a prestoopnick, but not to Alex. Whether or not he understands such is beyond me.

"Why would he keep you around when there are bolshier, better lewdies to filly with."

"I think you have some problems you're pushing onto me, brother sir."

"No problems 'ere, brother."

"I viddy a few problems."

"No, none." He seemed very, very serious. I nodded, none problems here. "It's fine if you don't want to. Most lewdies, they're so weak to such slovos. My uncle Ezra snuffed it, and they wouldn't even say so at his funeral. They just said he was bolnoy."

"Christies think snuffin' it is a sin, I think, and like, if you snuff it you don't go into heaven."

"You know, maybe Bog can keep his soddin' heaven and stick it up his ugly arse." 

"If there even is one." I smecked, and surprisingly, he smecked back. All crooked zoobies and blackened gums.

* * *

 

It was around one in the morn when Billyboy snuffed it. Or tried to. I got a ring from Georgie earlier than I was able to think, and he was word-vomiting about the bezoomny thing that happened last nochy, a pooshka went off and he was found in a puddle of his own krovvy on that piss-stained mattress he called bed. His Em tolchocked him absolutely senseless, something about paying hospital bills, and got carried off to the staja where baboochkas like her belong.

And then he said something about  _paying ol' billy goat a visit_ , and did I really have a choice? And they wore their bruiseboys' platties all serious-like, suddenly they had become strangers to me. My own droogs, now uncertain beings.

We appeared in the white room at noon, promptly, and we were all polite. The nurse had real horrorshow groodies on her, but Dim told me he'd tolchock me until I couldn't think if I tried any in-out with her... unless he could have a round, anyway. Georgie gave him an elbow in the ribs, the joking sort, and they smecked canine-esque and such. We went through hall after hall of nothing but beds and docs and bolnoy folks with their zoobies falling out until we found him in room 2-13. When we opened the door, there was another well-built nurse devotchka feeding the poor bratchny some crummy hospital pischa.

"Hi hi hi there." Georgie said, and he gave a princely bow. Dim followed, much more awkward. I figured I shouldn't have to. I'm just a normal malchick, after all, I have no title of importance, and I am not Officer Pete, but Dim looked at me all expectantly and I did the same awkward bow as he. "We were just here to visit this poor, poor man. We attended school together."

"It's absolutely horrible." She was full of emotion, an actor, for sure. "I heard the state of things was absolutely deplorable, the house hadn't been cleaned in years and just... it's a miracle anything survived this long in that dreadful place." Perhaps her and Georgie knew each other, or perhaps, she just felt it necessary to tell any old lewdie anything about any patient so long as they were a millicent. "I'll leave you three to it, then." She waved and stepped out. We all stepped closer, as if Billyboy was a dead bird we'd found in the park. Dim said,

"You viddy a real fright, brother!" He was so loud, I tolchocked him in the shoulder and he gave me this real angry viddy. Georgie took the edge of the mounch tray, and flicked it onto the floor, making a real sort of mess. 

"Been a long time, 'asen't it? A little drat just like olden times. If only Alex were here to viddy it all." Georgie and Dim smecked at each other as Dim withdrew a weighty baton. Bog knows, I tried to get a slovo in, but Dim was already on the half-dead malchick like vultures to rotting plott. He tolchocked Billyboy hard across the goobers, which would've probably turned his gulliver to the side were he not wearing some sort of complex gorlo-cast that went up to his ears. 

"Hey, Georgie! This is hardly any sort of fair, he's vredded. Leave o brother be." I said. Georgie turned at me, glazzy-lines raised high in confusion.

"What's the matter? We can do what we like, and like what we do. Nobody would ever mistrust a good millicent. And o brother wishes to snuff it so desperately, it's in our rabbit to help lewdies in need, yes or no?"

Another loud crack, Dim had given another gulliver-tolchock, which bent Billyboy's nose thisway and thatway. I drew my nozh and gave him a shive in the hip, which caught him off his guard. And I was beaten, o I was, brother Pete took it in the zoobies and the keeshkas and the bones. My droogs-turned-rozzes clapped against me again and again, the red red vino getting all over the floor and I just accepted it. That was when I heard a bell.

"Nurse," it was Billyboy's gorlo-torn voice, "something horrible's happened, could you come here?"

Georgie and Dim looked at each other gloopily and ran out the door, leaving me floorbound in my sorry state as it were. I rose to my feet, braced against the pale-white bed where Billyboy laid. My whole gulliver spun full of pounding bruises.

"Brother," I grabbed his rooker, "thank you, thank you brother."

"Droogies like that" Billyboy spoke, pained, visibly, "hardly count as droogies at all."

We sat in silence, waiting for the nurse to arrive and fix things. But nothing was really fixed.


End file.
